The decline and fall of the Spanish Empire does not challenge the
imagination like the decline and fall of that other Empire with which
alone it can be compared, possibly because no Gibbon has chronicled its
greatness. Yet its dissolution affected profoundly the history of three
continents. While the Floridas were slipping from the grasp of Spain,
the provinces to the south were wrenching themselves loose, with
protestations which penetrated to European chancelleries as well as to
American legislative halls. To Czar Alexander and Prince Metternich,
sponsors for the Holy Alliance and preservers of the peace of Europe,
these declarations of independence contained the same insidious
philosophy of revolution which they had pledged themselves everywhere
to combat. To simple American minds, the familiar words liberty and
independence in the mouths of South American patriots meant what they
had to their own grandsires, struggling to throw off the shackles of
British imperial control. Neither Europe nor America, however, knew the
actual conditions in these newborn republics below the equator; and both
governed their conduct by their prepossessions.
To the typically American mind of Henry Clay, now untrammeled by
any sense of responsibility, for he was a free lance in the House of
Representatives once more, the emancipation of South America was a
thrilling and sublime spectacle--"the glorious spectacle of eighteen
millions of people struggling to burst their chains and to be free."
In a memorable speech in 1818 he had expressed the firm conviction that
there could be but one outcome to this struggle. Independent these South
American states would be. Equally clear to his mind was their political
destiny. Whatever their forms of government, they would be animated by
an American feeling and guided by an American policy. "They will obey
the laws of the system of the new world, of which they will compose a
part, in contradistinction to that of Europe." To this struggle and to
this destiny the United States could not remain indifferent. He would
not have the Administration depart from its policy of strict and
impartial neutrality but he would urge the expediency--nay, the
justice--of recognizing established governments in Spanish America.
Such recognition was not a breach of neutrality, for it did not imply
material aid in the wars of liberation but only the moral sympathy of a
great free people for their southern brethren.
Contrasted with Clay's glowing enthusiasm, the attitude of the
Administration, directed by the prudent Secretary of State, seemed cold,
calculating, and rigidly conventional. For his part, Adams could see
little resemblance between these revolutions in South America and
that of 1776. Certainly it had never been disgraced by such acts of
buccaneering and piracy as were of everyday occurrence in South American
waters. The United States had contended for civil rights and then for
independence; in South America civil rights had been ignored by all
parties. He could discern neither unity of cause nor unity of effort
in the confused history of recent struggles in South America; and until
orderly government was achieved, with due regard to fundamental civil
rights, he would not have the United States swerve in the slightest
degree from the path of strict neutrality. Mr. Clay, he observed in
his diary, had "mounted his South American great horse... to control or
overthrow the executive."
President Monroe, however, was more impressionable, more responsive
to popular opinion, and at this moment (as the presidential year
approached) more desirous to placate the opposition. He agreed with
Adams that the moment had not come when the United States alone might
safely recognize the South American states, but he believed that
concerted action by the United States and Great Britain might win
recognition without wounding the sensibilities of Spain. The time was
surely not far distant when Spain would welcome recognition as a relief
from an impoverishing and hopeless war. Meanwhile the President
coupled professions of neutrality and expressions of sympathy for the
revolutionists in every message to Congress.
The temporizing policy of the Administration aroused Clay to another
impassioned plea for those southern brethren whose hearts--despite all
rebuffs from the Department of State--still turned toward the United
States. "We should become the center of a system which would constitute
the rallying point of human freedom against the despotism of the Old
World.... Why not proceed to act on our own responsibility and recognize
these governments as independent, instead of taking the lead of the
Holy Alliance in a course which jeopardizes the happiness of unborn
millions?" He deprecated this deference to foreign powers. "If Lord
Castlereagh says we may recognize, we do; if not, we do not.... Our
institutions now make us free; but how long shall we continue so, if we
mold our opinions on those of Europe? Let us break these commercial
and political fetters; let us no longer watch the nod of any European
politician; let us become real and true Americans, and place ourselves
at the head of the American system."
The question of recognition was thus thrust into the foreground of
discussion at a most inopportune time. The Florida treaty had not yet
been ratified, for reasons best known to His Majesty the King of Spain,
and the new Spanish Minister, General Vives, had just arrived in the
United States to ask for certain explanations. The Administration
had every reason at this moment to wish to avoid further causes of
irritation to Spanish pride. It is more than probable, indeed, that Clay
was not unwilling to embarrass the President and his Secretary of State.
He still nursed his personal grudge against the President and he did not
disguise his hostility to the treaty. What aroused his resentment was
the sacrifice of Texas for Florida. Florida would have fallen to the
United States eventually like ripened fruit, he believed. Why, then,
yield an incomparably richer and greater territory for that which was
bound to become theirs whenever the American people wished to take it?
But what were the explanations which Vives demanded? Weary hours spent
in conference with the wily Spaniard convinced Adams that the great
obstacle to the ratification of the treaty by Spain had been the
conviction that the United States was only waiting ratification to
recognize the independence of the Spanish colonies. Bitterly did Adams
regret the advances which he had made to Great Britain, at the
instance of the President, and still more bitterly did he deplore those
paragraphs in the President's messages which had expressed an all too
ready sympathy with the aims of the insurgents. But regrets availed
nothing and the Secretary of State had to put the best face possible on
the policy of the Administration. He told Vives in unmistakable language
that the United States could not subscribe to "new engagements as the
price of obtaining the ratification of the old." Certainly the United
States would not comply with the Spanish demand and pledge itself
"to form no relations with the pretended governments of the revolted
provinces of Spain." As for the royal grants which De Onis had agreed to
call null and void, if His Majesty insisted upon their validity, perhaps
the United States might acquiesce for an equivalent area west of the
Sabine River. In some alarm Vives made haste to say that the King
did not insist upon the confirmation of these grants. In the end he
professed himself satisfied with Mr. Adams's explanations; he would send
a messenger to report to His Majesty and to secure formal authorization
to exchange ratifications.
Another long period of suspense followed. The Spanish Cortes did not
advise the King to accept the treaty until October; the Senate did not
reaffirm its ratification until the following February; and it was two
years to a day after the signing of the treaty that Adams and Vives
exchanged formal ratifications. Again Adams confided to the pages of his
diary, so that posterity might read, the conviction that the hand of an
Overruling Providence was visible in this, the most important event of
his life.
If, as many thought, the Administration had delayed recognition of the
South American republics in order not to offend Spanish feelings while
the Florida treaty was under consideration, it had now no excuse for
further hesitation; yet it was not until March 8, 1822, that President
Monroe announced to Congress his belief that the time had come when
those provinces of Spain which had declared their independence and were
in the enjoyment of it should be formally recognized. On the 19th of
June he received the accredited charge d'affaires of the Republic of
Colombia.
The problem of recognition was not the only one which the impending
dissolution of the Spanish colonial empire left to harass the Secretary
of State. Just because Spain had such vast territorial pretensions and
held so little by actual occupation on the North American continent,
there was danger that these shadowy claims would pass into the hands of
aggressive powers with the will and resources to aggrandize themselves.
One day in January, 1821, while Adams was awaiting the outcome of his
conferences with Vives, Stratford Canning, the British Minister,
was announced at his office. Canning came to protest against what
he understood was the decision of the United States to extend its
settlements at the mouth of the Columbia River. Adams replied that he
knew of no such determination; but he deemed it very probable that the
settlements on the Pacific coast would be increased. Canning expressed
rather ill-matured surprise at this statement, for he conceived that
such a policy would be a palpable violation of the Convention of 1818.
Without replying, Adams rose from his seat to procure a copy of the
treaty and then read aloud the parts referring to the joint occupation
of the Oregon country. A stormy colloquy followed in which both
participants seem to have lost their tempers. Next day Canning returned
to the attack, and Adams challenged the British claim to the mouth of
the Columbia. "Why," exclaimed Canning, "do you not KNOW that we have a
claim?" "I do not KNOW," said Adams, "what you claim nor what you do not
claim. You claim India; you claim Africa; you claim--" "Perhaps," said
Canning, "a piece of the moon." "No," replied Adams, "I have not heard
that you claim exclusively any part of the moon; but there is not a spot
on THIS habitable globe that I could affirm you do not claim; and there
is none which you may not claim with as much color of right as you can
have to Columbia River or its mouth."
With equal sang-froid, the Secretary of State met threatened aggression
from another quarter. In September of this same year, the Czar issued
a ukase claiming the Pacific coast as far south as the fifty-first
parallel and declaring Bering Sea closed to the commerce of other
nations. Adams promptly refused to recognize these pretensions and
declared to Baron de Tuyll, the Russian Minister, "that we should
contest the right of Russia to ANY territorial establishment on this
continent, and that we should assume distinctly the principle that the
American continents are no longer subjects for any new European colonial
establishments." *
* Before Adams retired from office, he had the satisfaction
of concluding a treaty (1824) with Russia by which the Czar
abandoned his claims to exclusive jurisdiction in Bering Sea
and agreed to plant no colonies on the Pacific Coast south
of 54 degrees 40 minutes.
Not long after this interview Adams was notified by Baron Tuyll that
the Czar, in conformity with the political principles of the allies, had
determined in no case whatever to receive any agent from the Government
of the Republic of Colombia or from any other government which owed its
existence to the recent events in the New World. Adams's first impulse
was to pen a reply that would show the inconsistency between these
political principles and the unctuous professions of Christian duty
which had resounded in the Holy Alliance; but the note which he drafted
was, perhaps fortunately, not dispatched until it had been revised
by President and Cabinet a month later, under stress of other
circumstances.
At still another focal point the interests of the United States ran
counter to the covetous desires of European powers. Cuba, the choicest
of the provinces of Spain, still remained nominally loyal; but, should
the hold of Spain upon this Pearl of the Antilles relax, every maritime
power would swoop down upon it. The immediate danger, however, was not
that revolution would here as elsewhere sever the province from Spain,
leaving it helpless and incapable of self-support, but that France,
after invading Spain and restoring the monarchy, would also intervene
in the affairs of her provinces. The transfer of Cuba to France by
the grateful King was a possibility which haunted the dreams of George
Canning at Westminster as well as of John Quincy Adams at Washington.
The British Foreign Minister attempted to secure a pledge from France
that she would not acquire any Spanish-American territory either by
conquest or by treaty, while the Secretary of State instructed the
American Minister to Spain not to conceal from the Spanish Government
"the repugnance of the United States to the transfer of the Island of
Cuba by Spain to any other power." Canning was equally fearful lest the
United States should occupy Cuba and he would have welcomed assurances
that it had no designs upon the island. Had he known precisely the
attitude of Adams, he would have been still more uneasy, for Adams was
perfectly sure that Cuba belonged "by the laws of political as well as
of physical gravitation" to the North American continent, though he
was not for the present ready to assist the operation of political and
physical laws.
Events were inevitably detaching Great Britain from the concert of
Europe and putting her in opposition to the policy of intervention, both
because of what it meant in Spain and what it might mean when applied
to the New World. Knowing that the United States shared these latter
apprehensions, George Canning conceived that the two countries might
join in a declaration against any project by any European power for
subjugating the colonies of South America either on behalf or in the
name of Spain. He ventured to ask Richard Rush, American Minister at
London, what his government would say to such a proposal. For his part
he was quite willing to state publicly that he believed the recovery
of the colonies by Spain to be hopeless; that recognition of their
independence was only a question of proper time and circumstance; that
Great Britain did not aim at the possession of any of them, though she
could not be indifferent to their transfer to any other power. "If," said
Canning, "these opinions and feelings are, as I firmly believe them to
be, common to your government with ours, why should we hesitate mutually
to confide them to each other; and to declare them in the face of the
world?"
Why, indeed? To Rush there occurred one good and sufficient answer,
which, however, he could not make: he doubted the disinterestedness of
Great Britain. He could only reply that he would not feel justified in
assuming the responsibility for a joint declaration unless Great Britain
would first unequivocally recognize the South American republics; and,
when Canning balked at the suggestion, he could only repeat, in as
conciliatory manner as possible, his reluctance to enter into any
engagement. Not once only but three times Canning repeated his
overtures, even urging Rush to write home for powers and instructions.
The dispatches of Rush seemed so important to President Monroe that
he sent copies of them to Jefferson and Madison, with the query--which
revealed his own attitude--whether the moment had not arrived when the
United States might safely depart from its traditional policy and meet
the proposal of the British Government. If there was one principle which
ran consistently through the devious foreign policy of Jefferson and
Madison, it was that of political isolation from Europe. "Our first and
fundamental maxim," Jefferson wrote in reply, harking back to the
old formulas, "should be never to entangle ourselves in the broils
of Europe, our second never to suffer Europe to intermeddle with
Cis-Atlantic affairs." He then continued in this wise:
"America, North and South, has a set of interests distinct from those
of Europe, and peculiarly her own. She should therefore have a system
of her own, separate and apart from that of Europe. While the last is
laboring to become the domicile of despotism, our endeavor should surely
be, to make our hemisphere that of freedom. One nation, most of all,
could disturb us in this pursuit; she now offers to lead, aid, and
accompany us in it. By acceding to her proposition, we detach her from
the band of despots, bring her mighty weight into the scale of free
government and emancipate a continent at one stroke which might
otherwise linger long in doubt and difficulty.... I am clearly of Mr.
Canning's opinion, that it will prevent, instead of provoking war. With
Great Britain withdrawn from their scale and shifted into that of our
two continents, all Europe combined would not undertake such a war....
Nor is the occasion to be slighted which this proposition offers, of
declaring our protest against the atrocious violations of the rights
of nations, by the interference of any one in the internal affairs of
another, so flagitiously begun by Buonaparte, and now continued by the
equally lawless alliance, calling itself Holy."
Madison argued the case with more reserve but arrived at the same
conclusion: "There ought not to be any backwardness therefore, I think,
in meeting her [England] in the way she has proposed." The dispatches
of Rush produced a very different effect, however, upon the Secretary of
State, whose temperament fed upon suspicion and who now found plenty
of food for thought both in what Rush said and in what he did not say.
Obviously Canning was seeking a definite compact with the United States
against the designs of the allies, not out of any altruistic motive but
for selfish ends. Great Britain, Rush had written bluntly, had as little
sympathy with popular rights as it had on the field of Lexington. It
was bent on preventing France from making conquests, not on making South
America free. Just so, Adams reasoned: Canning desires to secure from
the United States a public pledge "ostensibly against the forcible
interference of the Holy Alliance between Spain and South America;
but really or especially against the acquisition to the United States
themselves of any part of the Spanish-American possessions." By
joining with Great Britain we would give her a "substantial and perhaps
inconvenient pledge against ourselves, and really obtain nothing in
return." He believed that it would be more candid and more dignified
to decline Canning's overtures and to avow our principles explicitly to
Russia and France. For his part he did not wish the United States "to
come in as a cock-boat in the wake of the British man-of-war!"
Thus Adams argued in the sessions of the Cabinet, quite ignorant of the
correspondence which had passed between the President and his mentors.
Confident of his ability to handle the situation, he asked no more
congenial task than to draft replies to Baron Tuyll and to Canning and
instructions to the ministers at London, St. Petersburg, and Paris;
but he impressed upon Monroe the necessity of making all these
communications "part of a combined system of policy and adapted to each
other." Not so easily, however, was the President detached from the
influence of the two Virginia oracles. He took sharp exception to the
letter which Adams drafted in reply to Baron Tuyll, saying that he
desired to refrain from any expressions which would irritate the Czar;
and thus turned what was to be an emphatic declaration of principles
into what Adams called "the tamest of state papers."
The Secretary's draft of instructions to Rush had also to run the
gauntlet of amendment by the President and his Cabinet; but it emerged
substantially unaltered in content and purpose. Adams professed to find
common ground with Great Britain, while pointing out with much subtlety
that if she believed the recovery of the colonies by Spain was
really hopeless, she was under moral obligation to recognize them as
independent states and to favor only such an adjustment between them and
the mother country as was consistent with the fact of independence. The
United States was in perfect accord with the principles laid down by Mr.
Canning: it desired none of the Spanish possessions for itself but it
could not see with indifference any portion of them transferred to any
other power. Nor could the United States see with indifference "any
attempt by one or more powers of Europe to restore those new states to
the crown of Spain, or to deprive them, in any manner whatever, of
the freedom and independence which they have acquired." But, for
accomplishing the purposes which the two governments had in common--and
here the masterful Secretary of State had his own way--it was advisable
THAT THEY SHOULD ACT SEPARATELY, each making such representations to the
continental allies as circumstances dictated.
Further communications from Baron Tuyll gave Adams the opportunity,
which he had once lost, of enunciating the principles underlying
American policy. In a masterly paper dated November 27, 1823, he
adverted to the declaration of the allied monarchs that they would never
compound with revolution but would forcibly interpose to guarantee the
tranquillity of civilized states. In such declarations "the President,"
wrote Adams, "wishes to perceive sentiments, the application of which is
limited, and intended in their results to be limited to the affairs of
Europe.... The United States of America, and their government, could not
see with indifference, the forcible interposition of any European Power,
other than Spain, either to restore the dominion of Spain over her
emancipated Colonies in America, or to establish Monarchical Governments
in those Countries, or to transfer any of the possessions heretofore or
yet subject to Spain in the American Hemisphere, to any other European
Power."
But so little had the President even yet grasped the wide sweep of the
policy which his Secretary of State was framing that, when he read
to the Cabinet a first draft of his annual message, he expressed his
pointed disapprobation of the invasion of Spain by France and urged an
acknowledgment of Greece as an independent nation. This declaration was,
as Adams remarked, a call to arms against all Europe. And once again
he urged the President to refrain from any utterance which might be
construed as a pretext for retaliation by the allies. If they meant to
provoke a quarrel with the United States, the administration must meet
it and not invite it. "If they intend now to interpose by force, we
shall have as much as we can do to prevent them," said he, "without
going to bid them defiance in the heart of Europe." "The ground I wish
to take," he continued, "is that of earnest remonstrance against the
interference of the European powers by force with South America, but to
disclaim all interference on our part with Europe; to make an American
cause and adhere inflexibly to that." In the end Adams had his way and
the President revised the paragraphs dealing with foreign affairs so as
to make them conform to Adams's desires.
No one who reads the message which President Monroe sent to Congress on
December 2, 1823, can fail to observe that the paragraphs which have an
enduring significance as declarations of policy are anticipated in
the masterly state papers of the Secretary of State. Alluding to the
differences with Russia in the Pacific Northwest, the President repeated
the principle which Adams had stated to Baron Tuyll: "The occasion has
been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights
and interests of the United States are involved, that the American
continents, by the free and independent condition which they have
assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects
for future colonization by any European powers." And the vital principle
of abstention from European affairs and of adherence to a distinctly
American system, for which Adams had contended so stubbornly, found
memorable expression in the following paragraph:
"In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we
have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy so to
do. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we
resent injuries or make preparations for our defense. With the movements
in this hemisphere we are of necessity more immediately connected,
and by causes which must be obvious to all enlightened and impartial
observers. The political system of the allied powers is essentially
different in this respect from that of America. This difference proceeds
from that which exists in their respective Governments; and to the
defense of our own, which has been achieved by the loss of so much
blood and treasure, and matured by the wisdom of their most enlightened
citizens, and under which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this
whole nation is devoted. We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the
amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers
to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend
their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace
and safety. With the existing colonies and dependencies of any European
power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the
Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it,
and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just
principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the
purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner
their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the
manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States."
Later generations have read strange meanings into Monroe's message, and
have elevated into a "doctrine" those declarations of policy which had
only an immediate application. With the interpretations and applications
of a later day, this book has nothing to do. Suffice it to say that
President Monroe and his advisers accomplished their purposes; and
the evidence that they were successful is contained in a letter which
Richard Rush wrote to the Secretary of State, on December 27, 1823:
"But the most decisive blow to all despotick interference with the new
States is that which it has received in the President's Message at the
opening of Congress. It was looked for here with extraordinary interest
at this juncture, and I have heard that the British packet which left
New York the beginning of this month was instructed to wait for it
and bring it over with all speed.... On its publicity in London... the
credit of all the Spanish American securities immediately rose, and the
question of the final and complete safety of the new States from all
European coercion, is now considered as at rest."